I found this awesome Valentine's Day printable here, framed it, and added it to the mantel. I love it, it was the PERFECT addition!

I still felt there was something else needed so I decided to make a banner and THIS is what I came up with! I LOVE how easy it was to make and how it came out and how it's totally Valentinesy and yet still fits with my decor :)

So here is my Valentine's Day mantel :) Not TOO different, just added a little love ;)

I have a made a few more additions to my Valentine's Decor this year and I'm hoping to share them here soon!

January 29, 2012

Last year as Valentine's Day drew near, I wanted to do SOMETHING to decorate for it, but I really didn't want to change the whole winter scheme I had goin on, just add to it.

I decided I could totally do a Valentine's theme with blue so it would still fit in with the color scheme. And the first thing I did was make a pretty banner :)

1. At the dollar store I got a pack of white doilee hearts and cut 17 circles from 3 different colors/patterns of scrapbook paper, a circle for each letter and a one for a space in front, back, and between each word.

I used the blue papers and snowy patterns to play up the winter theme :)

2. I measured the center of the heart, and using my cricut, I cut out the letters in navy blue cardstock.

3. I used a clear square scrapbook adhesive attached to the back of the heart to adhere it to the circle.

4. I used a liquid adhesive on the back of the letters

and adhered them to the center of the heart.

5. I cut 3/8" white grosgrain ribbon in 2" sections and looped it. I attached it to the back of the circles using a glue dot but you could also use a stapler.

6. I strung the circles on a pretty blue satin ribbon across the mantel.

January 11, 2012

Last year I decided that as much as I loved my wintry decor of blues and whites and browns, I needed SOMETHING for Valentine's Day. So I first started with adding a little love to my T-shirt wreath :)

I made this wreath last year out of some old T-shirts that were too stretched out to wear or even give away. I saw a tutorial on shaping a word document into a specific shape and the example was a heart. I decided I could totally do something with this idea! That tutorial is now added to my MANY Pinterest boards so I'm totally counting this as making one of my MANY Pins ;)

1. I took the vows from my husband & I's wedding because I loved them SO much, but you could also use a song that is special to you, and used the tutorial above to make them into a heart shape!

2. Print and cut out the shape.

3. Then I traced the shape onto cardboard, and cut it out.

4. Using scrapbooking photo squares, I adhered the paper heart to the card board heart.

5. Then I chose a fabric in a solid color that matched my other winter decor and made rosettes ... LOTS of rosettes ;) Here's a tutorial I made for those. I used strips of fabric in approximately the same as the one's in the tutorial.

6. I hot glued them directly to the paper and eliminated the step of gluing to a piece of felt.

I LOVE how it looks!

7. I didn't want it permanently attach it to the wreath so I hot glued some white ribbon to the back of the cardboard and tied it to the top of the wreath.

DONE! I LOVE how it turned out and I think it adds just enough love to my decor without being sappy ;)

January 9, 2012

My winter mantel is a work in progress, I'm afraid. I was hoping to have my decorating done by now, but have been busy working on late Christmas gifts :-/

One night this weekend however, I got distracted. I was sitting at the bar talking to the hubs while he was making dinner and saw this ... it spoke to me.

It said "MAKE ME PRETTY!" and batted it's eye lashes at me. How could I resist?

So I made a pretty little twine tree with a ball of twine and styro cone, both from the dollar store :)

1. I started by just holding the twine with my fingers and wrapping it around once, then gluing it in place.

2. Repeat for the rest of the cone. Simple as that!

3. For the top, I did a strip of glue down the middle and wrapped the twine around and around until it reached the center, then cut and held it down til it dried.

4. Since my twine is from the dollar store, it probably wasn't the BEST quality, and had some fly aways. I just took a small pair of scissors and cut them off mostly. I like a little bit poking out here and there, but not quite THIS much.

DONE!

Ok, now this is where I'm torn ...

I like it here sitting on the mantel ... but ...

I kind of like it here too with the pedestal ... I'm torn.

What do you think?

So there's my cute little twine tree, made with dollar store items, for my winter mantel! HOPEFULLY, I'll get the rest of it finished and have more pics up soon!

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